Fire-hydrant.



H. M. LOFTONQ FIRE HYDRANT.

APPLlCATlON FILED MAR. 8. 1916; RENEWED FEB. 1.1918.

1 7 Patented Sept. 10,1918.

7 i5? U 18 7 F265. 1

HIHIH- HERBERT M. LOFTON, F CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE.

I FIRE-HYDE? f.)

Specificati ters ratem. Patented Sept. 1%;1918.

Original application flied August 24. 1910, Serial no. 578,774. PatentNo. 1,178,588, April 11, 1916. Divided and this application flled maroh8, 1816, Serial No. 82,799. Renewed February 7, 1918. Serial No.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HERBERT M..LOF1ON, a citizen of the United States,and resident of- Chattanooga, county of l-lamllton, and State ofTennessee, have invented an Improvement in Fire-Hydrants, of which thefollowing is a specification.

The object of my invention is to provide a construction of fire hydrantin which the 'valve seat and' valve may be withdrawn from the stock andshoe for repairs and in doing so withdraw with them the packing gasketemployed for makin a t1ghtoint between the valve seat an hydrant shoeand stock which remains intact.

This application is a division of my application Serial Number 578,774and filed August 24, 1910, and is especially directed to the particularimprovement of the packing gasket and its relation to the associatedparts of the hydrant; and any details herein shown and not formingsubject matter of the. claims are a part of my aforesaid application andclaimed therein.

Heretofore, in fire hydrants it has been customary to secure the valveseat in the stock or shoe with a tight joint by providing an annularfiat gas the opposing horizontal annular surfaces. When the valve andvalve seat'were required to be withdrawn from the shoe and stock, thegasket invariabl remained in position in the shoe and so ar down in thestock that it was difiicult to remove it, and the loss of the mechanicstime in so doing made the repair expense very costly. B the employmentof my invention, this di cultly is entirely overcome, as once the gaskethas been applied it remains attached to the valve seat and is withdrawnwith it when the latter is pulled up through the stock by the valve sten. Moreover, the act of screwing the valve seat in place in the shoeautomatically attaches the gasket to the valve seat and not to the shoe,and this is an especial feature of my. invention.

With the above and other objects in view, the nature of which will bemore fully understood from the description hereinafter,'

with a' screw threaded aperture into which the annular ring piece of thevalve seat structure may bescrewed when clamping et clamped between thevalve seat in position upon the gasket,

the valve seat ring having its lower perimeter provided with an annularshouldered portion to receive the gasket and so shaped details ofconstruction as more fully described hereinafter and defined in theclaims.

Referring to the drawin :Figure 1 is a sectional view through t e lowerportion of a firehydrant and embodying my invention; Fig. 2 is anenlarged'view of a portion of the same with the parts inposition justbefore forcing the valve seat in position upon the gasket; Fig. 3 is aplan view of the valve seat ring; Fig. 4 is a cross section of the sameon line m--w; Fig. 5 is. a transverse section ofa modified form of thehydrant adapted for use with my invention; and Fig. 6 is a cross sectionof the valve seat ring shown in Fig. 5.

The shoe is indicated at 1 and has the side inlet 3, and at the topis'providegiw'ith a cylindrical bore 20'having at bottom aninwardlydirected flange 8 forming an annular horizontal seat for thegasket 21. The bore 20 is.provided at its upper portion with screwthreads as shown, and its lower v portion may be made smooth and ifdesired provided with an annular groove 6 for drainage purposes. Thestock 2 may be bolted to the shoe as indicated at 4 but I do notrestrict myself to these details.

'Fitting down into the smooth portion of the bore 20 of the shoe is theannular valve seat ring 9 havin on its under and inner surface theconica valve seat 9", and 0n.its under and outer portion the annulargroove 9 of peculiar shape into which the lead gasket 21 is forced. Byreference to the drawings, it will be seen that this annular roove isformed by two curved portions orming an annular undercut recess whoseinner diameter is less than the diameter of the downwardly extendingflange 9". It will also be seen that these curved surfaces act as camsurfaces in shaping the lead gasket when the seat ring 9 is forced downso that it spreads inwardly into and fills the undercut groove as shownin Fig. 1.

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the position shown in Fig. 1. During this I harass? The seat ring 9 doesnot rotate and therefore does not injure the gasket, its movement beingrectilinear and produced by the rotation of the annular clamping bushingdown upon the seat ring, the latter is pushedv down from position shownin Fig. 2 into operation, the gasket, of rectangular cross section, isso clamped and compressed that it completely changes its shape andbecomes attached to the seat ring 9, and thereafter may be redrawn andreinserted with said seat ring.

The seat ring 9 ma have the following additional features: 7 t may beprovided with an annularperipheral groove 11.which comes into alinementwith the groove 6 of the shoe to provide a large drainage channel; itmay also have a transverse drainage aperture 12 through which thehydrant stock may drain when the hydrant has been closed, the drainagefrom the aperture 12 passin into the annular channel and thence throngthe radial apertures 7 to the ground outside of the hydrant; it mayfurther have oppositely arranged vertical grooves 13 (through one ofwhich the aperture 12 opens), said grooves acting as guides for thedrainage valve 19 and wings 18.

The main valve 16 is secured upon the bottom of the valve rod 5 and alsocooperates with the valve seat of ring 9. It may consist of the conicalleather portion 16 clamped betweenthe upper disk 17 and lower disk '17.The disk 17 is provided with the upwardly extending guide wings 18 whichare uided in the grooves 13 of the seat ring 9 a oresaid, and preventthe valve from rotating when the usual operating nut (not shown) isrotated in opening or closing the hydrant. One of these wings may havethe-leather valve strip 19 as shown so as to act as a drainage valve forthe aperture or part 12 to drain the water from'the stock when the mainvalve is closed, as shown in %n the modification shown in Figs. 5 and 6,the'seat ring has the annular groove 11 omitted, and in place the seatring 9 has a vertical groove 22 which receives a transverse pin 23 inthe shoe, and which construction permits the ring to move verticallyinto osition but prevents it from rotating. Furt ermore, the pin andgroove insure the ring going into the shoe in a definite position, andso that the drainage aperture 12 comes exactly in alinement with theaperture 7. In this construction as shown in Fig. 5, not only is theannular groove 11 with the shoe without disengaging of the seat ringomitted, but the annular groove 6 of the shoeis also omitted, thesedetails not being essential to my improvement. This construction issomewhat less expensive than the construction shown in Figs. 1 to 4, butit has the disadvantage that there is more liability for the drainageapertures to become clogged owing to the fact that there is only oneoutlet. These details, however, may be varied as desired.

It will now be understood that when the bushing 10 is screwed downtightl upon the seat'ring the'latter is guided in t e shoe and forciblypressed upon the gasket 21 without rotating it. The cam actlon of thegroove 9 is suc that its'npper curved surface presses upon the uppersurface of the gasket adjacent to its outer edge, and tends to force thelead body thereo adjacent to the inner edge both upwardl and inwardly,this action being permitted y the fact that the circumferentially curvedportion has a smaller diameter at the top than at the lower part,thereby providing more room for the inner portion of the. gasket, andthe latter is therefore spread inwardly as the seat ring is presseddownwardly upon it and automatically shapes itself to the undercutgroove 9 thereof, as is clearly shown in Fi 1. The gasket then becomesan attac ed part of the seat ring structure, and may be withdrawn orinserted with the seat ring in subsequent withdrawal thereof in thematter of repairs to the hydrant. In

. Withdrawing the seat ring with its attached gasket, the bushing 10 isfirst unscrewed and then the valve rod is pulled upwardly and with itthe valve seat ring and the bushing, and in this action the gasket iscarried upwardly with the seat ring as the attachment is so firm that itcan overcome any friction itself from the seat ring. I do not restrictmyself to the particular shape of the undercut portion of the seat ring,nor to the particular composition of the soft gasket, as these may bevaried so long as the general embodiment of the invention is maintained.It will also be observed that the downwardly extending flanged portion 9of the seat ring fits through the inner opening of the flanged portion 8of the shoe so that the gasket is confined within an annular channel,and because of this inability to escape by flowing out of this annularchannel, the metal of the gasket is compelled to flow in the directionof the undercut portion" of the groove of the seat ring. While I haveshown my invention in connection with a seat ring formed inthe two parts9fand 10, the latter screwed into the shoe to clamp the seatri ng inplace, these specific details do not enter into the invention as it ismanifest that the two parts 9 and 10 may be integral ifigso, desired asdisclosed in Letters Patent No.

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diameter at its upper 978,385, dated Decembei' 13, 1910, formerlygranted tome, and so far as the invention claimed is concerned, the seatrmg may bean annular part upon which the main valve seats and which isdetachably attached to the shoe, so. long as it provides the specificconstruction of annular groove on its outer lower portion having theundercut parts into which the soft metal gasket is tightly fittedwhereby said ga'sket is held both against being blown out laterally or,pulled out downwardly, the former in the natural use of the organizedhydrant and the latter when withdrawing the seat ring with the valve.

It will now be apparent that I have devised a novel and usefulconstruction which embodies the features of advantage enu merated asdesirable, and while I have in the present instance shown and describeda suitable embodiment thereof which has been found in practice to givesatisfactory and reliable results, it is to be understood that I do notrestrict myself to the details, as the same are susceptible ofmodification in various particulars without departing from the spirit ofthe invention.

Having now described my invention, what I claim as new and desire tosecure by Letters Patent, is

1. In a fire hydrant, a shoe having at its upper portion a cylindricalaperture provided with anaannular inwardly directed shoulder at thebottom, combined with a valve seat ring fitting the cylindrical apertureand having an internal aperture of less diameter than the diameter ofthe opening of the flange of the shoe, and said seat ring having adownwardly extending flange '01- tion providing a conical valve seat anfit-- ting into the aperture of the flange of the shoe, said seat ringflange being also underout so asto have a smaller circumferential artthan at itslower part, a soft metal. gas iet clamped between the seatring and the flange of the shoe and fitting theundercut portion of theseat ring flange whereby it is removable with the seat ring, a valveiece of greater diameter than,

the internal diameter of the seat ring, and a valve spindle secured tothe valve piece whereby when the spindle and valve piece are'lifted theywill carry with them the seat ring and the gasket.

2. In a fire hydrant, the shoe having a cyllndrical aperture at the topsaid aperture ring fitting ha its inner lower portion formed with aconlcal seat and its outer lower portion formed with an annular, groovehaving its inner corner formed as an undercut recess and said rinadapted to extend through the opening wit in the flanged ortion" of' theshoe to provide an annular c amber, and a asket resting upon the annularflange of he shoe and fitting tightly intothe grooved undercut portionofthe seat ring whereby the gasket forms a water, tight 'oint betweenthe seat ring and the shoe and is attached to the seat ring so as to bepositively removable therewith.

3. A seat ring for a fire hydrant, consist: ing. of a ring-shapedstructure having its lower inner portion formed with a conical seat andits lower outer portion formed with an annular groove the walls of whichare at an angle to each other and said walls having annular depressedportions at a distance from their outer edges.

4. A seat ring for afire hydrant, consisting of a ring-shaped structurehaving its lower inner portion formed with a conical are at an angle toeach other and are annularly recessed to provide undercut portionscommon to both walls, and said ring provided with an annular soft metalsket rigidly positioned in the groove and tightly fitting the undercuthaving a vertical dept less than the vertical depth of the groovedportion of the seat ring 5.- A seat ring for a fire hydrant, consistingof a ring-shaped structure having its ortions thereof and I lower, innerportion formed with a valve I seat and its outer lower portion formedwith an annular groove, the upper annular horizontal wall of the groove.having an undercut portion ata distance from the outer circumferentialedge of the wall, and an annular soft metal gasket rigidly fitted in thegroove and extending up into the undercut portion to hold it in place.

In testimony ofwhich invention, I here- .unto set my hand.

. HERBERT M. LOF'IION. Witnesses:

K. L. MCCARTHY,

T. P. DICKMANN.

